How Science Fiction Grapples with the Growing Power of Artificial Intelligence

DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 3-2016 Artificial perspectives: how science fiction grapples with the growing power of artificial intelligence Marcus Emanuel DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Emanuel, Marcus, "Artificial perspectives: how science fiction grapples with the growing power of artificial intelligence" (2016). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 207. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/207 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Artificial Perspectives: How Science Fiction Grapples with the Growing Power of Artificial Intelligence A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts March, 2016 By Marcus Emanuel Department of English College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences DePaul University Chicago, Illinois 1 Introduction In Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on the stories of Arthur C. Clarke, astronaut David Bowman, aboard the spacecraft Discovery One, struggles to shut down HAL, an artificial intelligence responsible for operating the ship. The HAL computer system has been killing astronauts one by one in an attempt to preserve its functioning and programmed mission. Bowman, in an orange spacesuit, floats into what we assume is HAL’s mainframe, armed with a variation on a ratchet key, in an attempt to power down the computer and its deadly intelligence. “I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over,” the HAL-9000 supercomputer says. “I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission and I want to help you.” Dave continues his work methodically, entering the storage area and disengaging HAL’s individual memory drives. Throughout this, HAL continues to plead in a measured monotone, and human-sounding, voice: “Dave, stop. Stop, will you? . I’m afraid, I’m afraid, Dave . My mind is going, I can feel it.” Finally, as it powers down, the supercomputer begins a different message. Its voice is lower now and its speech tempo noticeably slowed. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” it begins, before 2 identifying itself by name as well as location and date of birth. “I can sing a song. If you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you.” Dave, still disengaging the drives, encourages the supercomputer to sing. It begins to sing “Daisy Bell,” and as it does so, its voice continues to decrease in pitch, the tempo slowing almost to a stop. This, almost inarguably, is one of the most well known representations of an artificial intelligence in any form of media since the advent of the computer technology boom in the mid- 20th century. Is it possible to describe this scene as an accurate representation of artificial intelligence (AI) or an inaccurate one? Is this a question that can even be rightly asked? This scene, like much of the film, seems to present us with the facts of the situation in an unemotional manner. Dave’s movements are not hurried, he floats calmly through the ship, not flailing about frantically. We might even forget that, according to this story, we are witnessing a life and death struggle between two species of intelligent being. HAL’s voice is just as unsentimental. Even the content of his speech is largely measured (“stop, will you?”). The pacing of the editing is slow, almost lethargic. There is no pounding score in the background heightening the dramatic tension—in fact, there is no score at all. And yet there is dramatic tension in the scene. This arises in part from the action we’re watching take place as two kinds of intelligence battle for mastery. As viewers, we come to understand that Dave is dismantling HAL, a considerably powerful supercomputer that has already tried to endanger Dave’s life once. But the craft of the film also makes clear the subtle tension within the scene. There are the close-ups on Dave as he disengages the memory drives. His eyes move quickly, darting, his mouth is open. His breathing, while not frantic, is accelerated and a highlighted element on an otherwise sparse soundtrack. There is the repetition of HAL’s pleas (“Dave, stop. Stop, will you?”), implying urgency or desperation. There is the slow ejection of the drives — not a switch that can be flicked or a 3 button that can be hit, but something that requires a small, special tool that must be used over and over again to slowly eject these indeterminate aspects of HAL’s “consciousness.” In this scene as throughout the majority of the film, the style of editing, the lens choice and composition of the shot, seem to imply that we are almost watching the film from the perspective of an artificial intelligence — but hidden beneath this supposedly objective layer we find a dramatic tension that is very much rooted in the human. The answer I will give here to my opening question (“Is this an accurate representation of AI?”) is “No.” HAL in 2001 is a representation colored by our human limits of depiction, and is not without its own issues. My point here is that this is not a question that can be answered thoroughly. How can we have a representation of AI that isn’t colored by our being human? Even if, somehow, a representation were to come about that was not colored by our being human, surely our understanding of it would be, and then we would be in a similar position. The point is that we must be aware of this; aware that our own ideas, biases, assumptions — all founded in our biological makeup and senses themselves — will color any representation we create or perceive of AI. We cannot help this. We can, however, be as reflective as possible about our own anthropocentrism, and insofar as possible work to understand other forms of intelligence, perhaps with other animals such as non-human primates, elephants, crows, dolphins, and octopi as a first step. I suggest that we can use this hesitation over the limits of representations of non-human intelligence as a kind of foothold within the quagmire of our own “all too human” self-image. We can use these representations to illuminate the assumptions present in our understanding of both intelligent beings and ourselves. 4 What do the assumptions hidden within the seminal scene from 2001 reveal about our understanding of ourselves and intelligence more generally? We can approach this question by identifying basic attributes or categories of attributes used to represent the AI HAL. We will examine these categories not with the goal of exhausting our understanding of their representation in 2001, but with the purposes of laying out broad categories that will recur time and again in the other works we focus on and, more importantly, with the goal of illuminating how the initial assumptions we often make regarding how a given text positions an AI within these categories is undermined by these very same works. Embodiment: HAL is embodied within the ship, and to a degree as the ship, but does not have any centrally located body akin to life and intelligence as we know it. Importantly, as Dave disconnects him, HAL does not have any means of physically resisting and is forced to instead plead with Dave. Equally important, while the rest of the film supports the supposition that HAL is only relatively embodied (or not embodied in any traditional sense) in that he is able to be in different areas of the ship at the same time, Dave’s disconnection of HAL proves that he has does indeed have a physicality of some kind. “He” (but the very use of gendered pronouns for HAL is suspect – an artifact only by the male voice given to the computer terminal in the film) is, we discover, vulnerable in a physical way. HAL is, as we initially perceive him, extremely rational. This is evident in other scenes of the film where we learn that HAL’s emotions are at least in part programming with the purpose of putting the crew at ease around him. In the climactic scene, HAL’s rationality is apparent in the calm he maintains. We might say he has what it called a “theory of mind;” HAL is inferring the best tone and kind of appeal to present to Dave. His voice stays level, he speaks in a calming 5 tone. His cadence remains paced. But, as with the criteria of embodiment, this sense of rationality is undermined here. His debate strategy breaks down over the course of Dave’s action. HAL starts by trying to convince Dave of his good intentions, his reformed mindset. He then changes to repeated pleading. This is followed by the poetic (“My mind is going, Dave. I can feel it”) before he reverts to a childlike state. When pressed, his rational demeanor reverts to something emotional. Does HAL have an “identity,” and is this identity unique? Is HAL a “character”? In some ways, the film pushes back against the idea that HAL has a unique identity. There is his name, identifying him as an update along a continuum, and the film at one point makes explicit that there is another HAL 9000 unit against which they can compare the HAL we are familiar with in the film’s diegesis.

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